Digital

Watermarking

Lecture notes taken from the
Web

faculty.kfupm.edu.sa/EE/samara/WAterm
arking%20Lecture%202.ppt

Author Unknown
Introduction
Relation to Cryptography
Cryptography is
Reversibility (no evidence)
Established
Watermarking (1990s)
Non-reversible (noise)
Information Hiding
Covert communication channel (steganography)
Digital Watermarking
Media
Video
Audio
Images
Our discussion will focus on this.
Watermarking
Algorithm
Watermarked
Image
Original
Image
Watermark
Block Diagram
of image watermarking
Applications
Copyright
The objective is to permanently and unalterably mark the image
so that the credit or assignment is beyond dispute.
Digital Rights
A file may only be used by users with a license that matches the
watermarked signature.
Information Hiding
Foil counterfeiters
Revision History
Tamper detection
Meta-tagging
Store keywords, descriptions, time along with images.

Criteria
Main Criteria
Capacity
Payload
Computational Complexity
Transparency
Robustness

Require optimum relationship
Capacity
The ability to detect watermarks with a low
probability of error as the number of
watermarks in a single image increases.

Payload
The amount of information that can be
legitimately stored within a data stream
Dependent on host medium
JPEG example
Computational Complexity
Difficulty in process of watermark
extraction
Realtime?
Transparency
Transparency refers to the perceptual
quality of the data being protected.
Watermark should be invisible over all image
types as well as local image characteristics.
Need to consider perceptually insignificant
portion of host image for insertion for
maximum transparency
Robustness
Resistance to attacks on the watermark
Attack an operation performed on the image that
compromises the watermark
Active, Passive, Collusion, Forgery
Blind vs. Nonblind
Use of non-robust watermarks
eg. tamper detection
Approaches and Implementation
Two Types of Encoding
Spatial watermarking (spatial domain)
Spectral watermarking (frequency-domain)
Many types due to variety of transforms
Adjustments made in frequency domain
More robust

Spatial-Domain Implementation
Low-level Encoding
Use of Image Analysis Operations
eg. Edge Detection/Color Separation
Cons
Easily Attacked (Cropping)
Frequency-Domain Implementation
Algorithm
Decomposition of image
Addition of Watermark
Possibly encoded/encrypted
Re-composition of Image

Frequency-Domain Implementation
(Discrete Cosine Transform)
Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT)
Used in todays standard JPEG compression
Relation to DFT
Compression explained by previous groups
Image divided into non-overlapping blocks
Each block is DC transformed
Block coefficients are quantized through a special
algorithm
Not ideal for human visual system

Frequency-Domain Implementation
(Wavelet Transform)
Wavelet Transform
Based on Short Time Fourier Transform
(STFT)
Becoming more common in compression
techniques
Better model of Human Visual System than DCT


Examples of Wavelets
Frequency-Domain Implementation
(Common Wavelet Transform Algorithm - Decomposition)
Filter Bank Decomposition (10 Bands)
Frequency-Domain Implementation
(Wavelet Transform Algorithm - Overview)
Watermarked Image
Encoded
Watermark
Frequency-Domain Implementation
(Cortex Transform)
Cortex Transform
Recent
Mimics human visual system
Corresponds to known structure of human eye
Has its own disadvantages
Computational complexity requires much more
data!
Other Issues
Just Noticeable Difference (JND)
Threshold based on Human Visual System
Adjustment in Frequency
Adjustments in Intensity
Important impact on transparency
Spatial adjustment of Frequency-Domain
Watermark
Spread Spectrum
Used to fulfill transparency criterion
The watermark in is based on spread spectrum
communications
Delivers narrowband data through a noisy channel, by
modulating each data symbol with a wideband (but
very low amplitude) signal.
The data is a single bit a yes or no decision on
whether the given watermark is present.
The channel is the image data itself
The wideband signal is the watermark.

Color Images
Scheme nearly identical to grayscale
R/G/B channels
Each color plane treated as a separate image
Luminance/Chrominance channels
Luminance = intensity
Chrominance = color
Resources
ftp://skynet.ecn.purdue.edu/pub/dist/delp/watermark-proceedings/paper.pdf
http://www.cosy.sbg.ac.at/~pmeerw/Watermarking/
http://www.cosy.sbg.ac.at/~pmeerw/Watermarking/MasterThesis/
http://www.eso.org/projects/esomidas/doc/user/98NOV/volb/node308.html
http://www.jjtc.com/Steganography/
http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/files/3508/digital%20watermarking.pdf
Mihcak, Mehmet Kivanc. Information Hiding Codes and Their Applications to Images
and Audio, PhD Thesis. 2002.